Book Sculptures!

Just for Fun!

Do you have an old book that is dated or no longer relevant. Don't throw it away. Use it to decorate your classroom! Experiment with different folding patterns. There is no wrong way to fold them. Once you have decided on a pattern, put a small bead of glue down the seam of the book and fold the page, then do the same thing with the next page. Continue squeezing a small bead down the seam until all pages are folded. Presto! An old book becomes an interesting art sculpture in your classroom.

Meet the Teacher

     At the beginning of the school year, create a Meet the Teacher board. Display pictures and honors you have recieved.
     On my personal meet the teacher board, I included my teacher certificate, which lead to a great segway for my 5th graders who then asked what exactly does it take to get that piece of paper. Promoting an education beyond H.S. was important for many of my boys and girls to hear about.
     Also showing accomplishements like recieving "Student of the Year" and "Swim Captain" in H.S. shows them to aim high throughout their education. There will always be a reward for those who try thier best.

Learning Goal

Identifying an Essential Question (EQ) is paramount these days in the classroom. Telling the students straight forward, this is what we will be accomplishing today during this lesson is the new norm.

Setting this up in any classroom can be simple. Electric tape works wonders on white boards. It comes off easily and looks strikingly clean on the board. By marking out boxes for each EQ, it becomes easy and neat to add new learning goals for each day or unit. While the picture does not demonstrate a completed EQ set, each of these boxes would have a statement or question.

For example: If the state standard demonstrated that the student should be able to understand that all matter is composed of parts that are too small to be seen without magnification, The EQ might read: How small is an atom and can we see it with a naked eye? 

The picture shows 5 EQ boxes for Reading, Math, Science, Social Studies, and Writing.

Providing an EQ for the students will guide instruction and give students direction as to what is expected for the days lesson.

Classroom Hanging Garden with Bugs!

 

How to make a Tissue Paper Flower:

Ingredients:

·         4 sheets of bright colored tissue paper

·         1 twistie tie

·         Strong scissors

·         Fishing Line

How to:

1.       Layer the 4 sheets of tissue paper(all 1 color) on top of each other in a stack.

2.       Fold the entire (4) stack of paper back and forth in a zig zag fashion. You will have a thick strip of paper.

3.       With a strong pair of scissors cut either a V or C shape on each end of the strip of paper (This will create different styles of flowers- my personal favorite is the V shape shown in the pictures).

4.       In the center of the strip, tie a twistie tie fairly tight.

5.       Begin opening the flower layers carefully as to not rip the tissue paper.

6.       Hang the flowers with fishing line from the ceiling so it seems as if they are floating.

Tips:

-Different sizes of tissue paper will created different size flowers.

-Hang multiple sized flowers at different heights in the classroom to add dimention and color to the room. They give a very inspiring and inviting feel to the room.

How to make an Egg Carton Caterpillar:

               

Ingredients:

·         Any size egg cartons, one egg cup for each letter of each student’s name. (For example: Molly would need to cut 5 cups from an egg carton so that on each cup, she can write 1 letter. Sebastian would need to cut 9 cups- in this case it will not be a straight caterpillar, so he can cut it in whichever way he likes, just so that there are 9 connected cups.)

·         Paint

·         Googlie Eyes

·         Pipe Cleaners

·         Black Marker

How to:

1.       Cut the egg carton to the desired shape and size.

2.       Paint the carton.

3.       After it is dry, write one letter of your name on each cup of the carton.

4.       Add pipe cleaners as intennas- curl to desired shape.

5.       Glue on googlie eyes.

Tips:

-Place the dried caterpillars on the flowers (you may attach with a paperclip, if they are unsteady).

Now you have a flower garden fully stocked with bugs!

Secret Password

What reading strategies are your students studying currently? Choose a word from this group and post it on a piece of paper above the door of your classroom. When the students arrive in the morning, they need to whisper this secret password in your ear before they enter. Do you have an older group? Boost the difficulty by making it a vocabulary or Spanish word and ask them for the definition or meaning. A fun way to promote class concepts!

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Cute Bulletin Board Alert!

I love this bulletin board! While scrolling through school websites, I saw this picture on the <http://www.alcottschool.net >website and had to post it! It did not have a description with it, but think about all of the great opportunities this lesson could explore.

You will obviously explore some art mediums in creating the self portrait people. The way this particular board is done, the teacher has either slides or zip lock bags to hold the child’s work.

·         With this, you could keep the little people up for a length of time and switch out some of their best pieces of work.

·         Or you could make it more them-like and create a specific piece of work for this board. Example: Have the students write, draw or both about the kinds of good work they can do.

·         Then take it a step further and challenge them to do a new job at home and write about that experience.  

Door Design

First Impressions are everything, which is why your classroom door is so important. This particular door design was done during our “Farm” Theme. The kids had so much fun painting all of the different pieces of banner paper for me.

The ingredients for this door design are:

·         Banner paper

·         Paint

·         Straw/hay/raffia (can be purchased at a craft store if necessary)

·         Yellow yarn

·         Green, Orange  and Black construction paper

·         Blue painters tape

·         Packing tape

·         Fishing Line

·         Black permanent marker

Optional ingredients:

·         Black feathers

·         Wiggly eyes

·         Die cut letters

·         Black felt

The Barn: Paint large pieces of red banner paper and attach to the door/wall, with blue painters tape, as the barn. Next fold long strips of white banner paper to create the trim for the barn. Use packing tape to attach to the red banner paper.

The Corn: On either side of the door we attached corn stalks. Paint the banner paper green. Once dry, roll it into a stalk. Paint banner paper yellow. Once dry, roll into an ear of corn, making 5 total. Cut a piece of green construction paper into a triangle and wrap it around the bottom of the ear of corn to create its half opened husk. Tuck some raffia/hay between the construction paper and the corn to create the hairs inside the husk. Attach the corn to the stalk with packing tape. You can either A) attach the stalk to the barn with packing tape or B) tie the top of the stalk with fishing line and hang the stalk by taping the other end of the fishing line above the barn on the wall.

The Horse, Pig and Cow: If you can draw- paint the banner paper, outline the animal with permanent marker, cut out and attach to your door. If you cannot draw- perhaps you have a student who can. Or perhaps the students can get into groups and work together to create one animal. I made each animal stand out by adding 3D features. The horse’s main is yellow yarn. The pig’s nose sticks out off the door and the cows spots are black felt.

The Crow: Cut an oval out of black construction paper. Have one student trace his/her hands on the black paper and cut them out. Attach the hands to either side of the oval. Cut a beak and feet from orange construction paper and attach. Glue wiggly eyes on top. If you wish, you can attach black feathers to the hands as the wings, but the hands also look cute on their own.

The Mouse: I actually just printed the mouse from the internet, cut him out and attached him to a pile of hay. Depending on your classroom door layout, the hay can be stapled to drywall or hot glued to the barn paper (while laying flat).

The Rooster: I also printed the rooster from the internet in black and white and colored him in with markers.  The mouse and rooster were small enough animals that I could print them, whereas the others were too large to do so.

Our themes run for one full month. I left this door design up for the month and when I took it down; I was able to add many of the pieces to my collection for next year.